


Spies Of Our Lives

by Omnicat



Category: Gundam Wing, Gundam Wing: Endless Waltz - Fandom, Gundam Wing: Episode Zero
Genre: Crack, F/F, F/M, Gen, M/M, Spies & Secret Agents
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-19
Updated: 2016-03-22
Packaged: 2018-05-27 16:11:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 16,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6291151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Omnicat/pseuds/Omnicat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Middie Une shows up out of nowhere and enlists with the Preventers. Paranoia ensues. Or it would, if Trowa had any say in it.</p><p>aka Middie Une meets EVERY SINGLE SURVIVING CHARACTER IN THE CANON (plus a dead one or two), with varying degrees of success</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. When Spies meet Howard’s Hawaiian, and its Namesake

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Middie Une meets Howard. Good times, for a change.

It was a dark and stormy night.  
  
Actually, no it wasn’t.  
  
The day was, plainly put, perfect. Sun, sea, just the right breeze and not a single obligation in sight. Middie was a puddle of boneless, graceless contentment in her comfy deck chair, a stack of books collapsed on one side of her and a pitcher of iced lemonade sweating on the other. The crew of the ship was busy as usual all around her, but her little island of self-indulgence lay well out of the way of their ever-hurried feet.  
  
Yep. Perfection.  
  
“Hey there. You still enjoying yourself?”  
  
Even the old man’s constant conversational pit stops did nothing to ruin Middie’s bliss. What more proof could there be of the wholesome effect of vacations?  
  
“Having the time of my life,” Middie answered, taking off her cheap, spiral-tipped sunglasses to smile up at him.  
  
“I gotta say, you’re a strange one.”  
  
“Again?”  
  
“We don’t get a lot of tourists here, what with this being a salvage barge instead of a cruise ship.”  
  
“Yes, I gathered that.”  
  
Howard squinted at her over the top of his own pointy sunglasses. “Getting bored of your gracious host, are ya?”  
  
“Absolutely not,” Middie said earnestly. She folded her legs beneath her and patted the end of her deck chair. “Have a seat. Want something to drink?”  
  
“Nah, I’m good.” He plopped down on the proffered spot and produced a metal flask from who knows where. “Taste this.”  
  
Middie raised a suspicious eyebrow, a lifetime of offering people drugged drinks looking over her shoulder.  
  
“You’re a legal adult, aren’t ya? Go on, take a sip.”  
  
Oh, what the hell. She accepted and took a swig. “Wow, this is amazing! What is it?”  
  
“My own recipe. Here, I’ve got a copy to spare.”  
  
“‘Suggested market name, ‘Howard’s Hawaiian’.’” she read. “Who’s going to market it?”  
  
“Not you, evidently.” He sighed. “Oh well, it’s always worth a try.”  
  
“Whuh?”  
  
“Nothing, nothing. Just that you never know when your impromptu drinking buddy’s in the distillery business, you know. Say, I’ve been meaning to ask, what business are you in?”  
  
“None. Else I wouldn’t have to improvise the world cruise I’ve always dreamed of on a salvaging ship, now would I?” Middie quipped.  
  
“Who knows. I’ve had guests on this ship with stranger motivations. You remind me of a certain one of them, you know. You wouldn’t happen to be related to Lady Une of the Preventors?”  
  
Oh. _This_ question again. That explained it.  
  
“I am, but we’ve never been close,” she answered, as she had countless times in the past. Freedom truly was the stuff of miracles. Even this wasn’t setting off her usually all-too-short, antisocial temper. “Can I have a little more of this?”  
  
“Go ahead and finish the bottle, I’ve got plenty more where that came from. ”  
  
So she did. “Une really isn’t that rare a name, you know,” she said, by force of habit more than anything else.  
  
“Sure, but the family resemblance is.”  
  
“What, you’ve met Lady?”  
  
“Sure have.” Suddenly there was a second flask in his hand, which he saluted her with and then cheerfully upturned.  
  
“And it was a _good_ meeting?” She didn’t _mean_ to make it sound incredulous. It was a deeply ingrained instinct.  
  
Howard laughed a hoarse, grandfatherly laugh. “No need to look at me like I’m about to bite your head off. She was a perfect guest, much like yourself. She thanked me for the hospitality and asked if I had a family waiting for me somewhere. I said not anymore and more of that depressing stuff, we talked about some of the kids we knew, and she mentioned she had a younger cousin in a similar situation she hoped would be happy again now that the war was over.”  
  
“And you assumed I was that cousin just because of my name,” Middie said wryly. She wasn’t sure how she felt about the fact that Lady would apparently start talking about her out of the blue. Or that she knew about her past circumstances. She knew Lady had had a fairly influential position in the military back during the war, but because of that same war, their families hadn’t kept in touch after the death of Middie’s mother. Or so she had always thought.  
  
“What? Of course not. I’m not senile just yet, I wouldn’t just randomly approach people like that.” Middie begged to differ, but she genuinely enjoyed Howard’s company, so she kept her mouth. “Like I said, I’ve seen eyes like yours before.”  
  
“Wha - when did you say _that?”_  
  
“Just now. Did you spike the lemonade, young lady?”  
  
Middie stared at Howard in bewilderment. Howard’s raised eyebrow danced and his moustache quivered ever so slightly. Middie narrowed her eyes at him.  
  
“Anyway,” Howard continued, far too jovially to be innocent, and slapped her on the knee. “Since we’re obviously never going to agree on how much of the reason that you’re on my ship is my business, tell me something: why are you broke and homeless when your dear cousin is leading such a very successful organisation where your skills would earn you such a very good salary?”  
  
For a moment, Middie debated with herself about the pros and cons of continuing the small talk on the one hand and grabbing a life vest and literally jumping ship on the other. It was obvious that Howard was messing with her head on purpose. Either he was the crafty and bored yet benevolent old man who missed having a family that he pretended to be, or he was trying to lure her into some kind of trap, having, for reasons unknown, thus far forgone doing things the easy, logical, sane-even-for-a-crazed-revenge-killer way by throwing her overboard with a piece of scrap metal around her neck.  
  
Eventually she rubbed the bridge of her nose, took another drink from Howard’s flask, and answered. Her childhood occupation had made her far too paranoid. “I’m not homeless, I’m voluntarily nomadic at the moment. I can go back home, I just don’t want to.”  
  
“If you’re not going back, where are you headed?”  
  
“Nowhere. Not in particular. You know that saying about throwing baby birds out of the nest to teach them to fly? That’s what I’m doing. To myself.”  
  
“And your way of learning to fly is floating around the seven seas pretending my ship is a cruise?”  
  
“Yep. I mean, I’ll run out of money soon enough and then I’ll get to finding a job and renting a place and all that. But in the mean time, I’m just going to enjoy the breeze. I daresay I’ve earned it.”  
  
“Aaaah. Well, can’t argue with you there.”  
  
Humming an affirmative, Middie held up her flask to him, and they clinked.  
  
They lapsed into a companionable silence, broken only by Howard muttering something about little paper umbrellas. Middie smiled, leaned back against her deck chair and closed her eyes. Freedom tasted sweet. Like illegally brewed liquor that may or may not leave her brain dead by nightfall.  
  
She was happy. And maybe one day she’d let her not-as-astranged-as-she’d-thought cousin know.


	2. When Spies have Job Interviews

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "You need to watch out for her. She used to be a spy." Trowa said. "Oh wow, really?" Une deadpanned.

"I must say your suspicion surprises me, Trowa." Une said. She hadn’t lowered her left eyebrow in at least a quarter of an hour."You need to watch out for her. She used to be a spy."

"Oh wow, really?" Une deadpanned. Trowa shot her a look sharp with annoyance.

"I’m serious. She’s good. Don’t be fooled by her innocent appearance."

Une _chuckled_. "Oh, I know. I remember a time at one of our grandfathers’ birthdays, when a bunch of us grandchildren had been using the bed in the master bedroom as a trampoline. We’d been warned to be careful and not break anything, but of course something _had_ to go wrong. I don’t remember how she did it, but she managed to get all of us out of smashing a large ornate mirror scott free."

Clearly unamused by the childhood antics of the youngest generation of Unes, Trowa sharpened his look some more. Une smirked. "Don’t worry. Wufei will deal with her. With him as the interrogator, it’ll be like a _double_ polygraph."

 

"Okay, let’s start with something simple. Is your name Middie Annelise Une?"

"Yes."

"Are you twenty-five years of age?"

"Yes."

"Are you biologically female?"

"Tried and tested."

"Ugh - restrict your answers to yes or no, please. Are you an only child?"

"No."

"Are you related to Lady Une, of the Preventor organization?"

"Yes."

"Are you two close?"

"Not really."

"Were you planning to use your familial connection to the director to get a job here?"

"I was keeping it in mind."

"Yes or no, please."

"I can’t say. Depends."

"Alright, elaborate. But stay on topic."

"I got the idea of applying here because I heard Lady was in charge. Today I was planning to gather information and see if the Preventors are something I’d want to be a part of. If it was worth it, I would have kept the family card at hand in case my credentials weren’t enough to get me in."

"Have you ever infiltrated units or organizations of any kind with the intent of gathering information for a third party that could be used to the detriment of said unit or organization?"

"Yes. It’s all in my files. But I swear I’m here for nobody’s benefit but my own."

"Just answer the question, please. So you admit to have been a spy for the Alliance in the past."

"Yes."

"And you are no longer fulfilling any such duties for them at present?"

"No."

"How do you feel about the downfall of the Alliance?"

"Glad. And relieved."

"Why?"

"Because I was ten when they scouted me. They took advantage of me, made me do horrible things, kept me on a string. I hope all the bastards who made it happen rot in hell."

"So you’re not harbouring any desires to see the Alliance in its old form resurrected and reinstated to its former position of power?"

"No! Let me ask _you_ , how did my cousin feel when OZ went down? Does _she_ want to go back to the old days? We both did some pretty awful things during the war, but Lady got to turn over a new leaf with this organization. That’s what I want too. That’s what this whole Preventor business is all about, isn’t it? Converting old forces to agents of the new regime and making sure nobody starts another violent rebellion?"

"Quite true." Wufei briefly quirked an eyebrow at the one-way mirror that took up most of the side wall. "Well Miss Une, I believe -"

But at that moment the door flew open. Trowa barged in, planted his hands on the table and leaned forward in such a way that he almost pushed Wufei from his chair.

"Do you remember me?" he demanded.

Middie gawked at him, first in amazement at his entry, then in slowly dawning recognition. "No way... is that you, No-Name?" The polygraph whizzed as her heartbeat sped up and blood flooded her cheeks.

"Trowa, for crying out loud -"

But again Trowa interrupted Wufei. "Don’t play dumb, of course you remember me. Why else would you be here? Why else would you be hanging around the circus grounds so much lately?"

Middie’s expression went from shocked to completely uncomprehending. "What does the circus have to do with anything? Do you work here, No-Na- I mean, what did he just call you, Trowa?"

"You know where I work. You’ve been around every day for the past two weeks. Don’t try to deny it."

She opened her mouth several times before she managed to find an answer. "Oh, wait a second... now I see it! You’re that clown! Wow, I hadn’t even recognized you, with all that hair and the half mask in the way."

"Of course you recognized me, why else would you keep coming? Stop lying."

"She’s not lying." Wufei interjected. He pointed a frowning Trowa to the polygraph readings. Trowa’s expression lost its severity, and when he looked back up at Middie his frown was one of confusion.

"Then what do you keep on coming back for?"

"The knife thrower you do your acts with - she’s really cute. I’ve been trying to get her to go out with me."

"You mean you like _girls?"_

"Oh my goodness, it’s a girl?! I hadn’t even noticed, with all that skintight spandex in the way!"

Now that the suspicion had worn off, Trowa looked almost hurt. "That’s not what you said last time we spoke."

"We were ten years old back then!" Middie gave him a once over. "And it’s not like I’ve sworn off boys completely. No-Name, I... or is it Trowa now?"

"Trowa Barton, yes." Lady Une, standing in the doorway, had been watching the events unfold with growing amusement. Now she stepped forward and extended a hand to her younger cousin. "May I suggest you get off that lie-detector before you continue your conversation? Congratulations, Middie, you’re hired."


	3. When Spies meet their Karmic Twins

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Middie Une meets fellow Preventer Nichol. He’s kind of a loser.

Getting into the organisation was easy. Not running right back out, not so much.  
  
It had been a week since she’d been hired, and it seemed like she was running into No-Name (it was hard to start calling him “Trowa” after all those years) at every turn. He was at the circus grounds when she tried to see Catherine, the gorgeous knifethrower she had fallen for like a bag of bricks, where he looked menacing in the background, often shirtless, which would have been cute-until-someone-loses-an-eye if it’d been anyone else. He was in her dreams at night, which wasn’t unusual, but annoying nonetheless. And he was in and out of the Preventor building, which was simply baffling.  
  
She hadn’t dared mention her discomfort to Lady or her direct superiors, because having a guilt complex before she’d even been on any assignments wouldn’t look very good on her record. That made it a little hard to find out why the hell No-Trowa was roaming around aimlessly in the building when he was actually supposed to be a member of the circus, though. She could break into the database and root around for clues about his involvement with the organisation, or she could try it among her new colleagues. Both were bound to come back to bite her in the ass sooner or later.  
  
“What’s wrong, did the copy machine try to eat you?”  
  
Middie nearly hit the ceiling.  
  
The man who had scared her didn’t apologize.  
  
“If it hasn’t yet, it probably never will.” He held out his hand with a smirk. “You’re the new girl, right? Lady Une’s cousin?”  
  
“I am. It’s Middie.” She shook his hand reluctantly.  
  
“I’m Nichol. I work directly under Lady,” he said. Then a strange look crossed his face. “Not - not _that_ way.”  
  
Middie stared at him.  
  
“You know, not physically,” he went on, clearly flustered.  
  
Middie inched away as subtly as she could. “Uh-huh.”  
  
“I’m like her personal assistant, see. I help her run the place. I do all kinds of boring chores. And I enjoy them! She doesn’t let me do anything that’s actually enjoyable, we’re not in any kind of relationship or anythi-”  
  
“It hadn’t even crossed my mind before you started babbling.”  
  
Middie bit her tongue just a heartbeat too late, but Nichol didn’t seem to take offense.  
  
He scraped his throat and nervously straightened his tie. “Yes. Well.” He looked at her from the corner of his eye. “So. Have you gotten to know anyone here yet?”  
  
She played along. “Yes, everyone’s been very welcoming. I feel right at home.”  
  
“Especially with family around, huh? You and Lady Une must have so much to catch up on after hours.”  
  
It was so obvious. And suddenly, so was the solution to Middie’s all-grown-up little problem.  
  
She took the still warm pile of documents that would make her an official member of the Preventor bureau from the copy machine, held them up in front of Nichol, moved in close to his side and pretended to point out some things on the paper while whispering: “I will tell you everything that is within my power to learn about the way to Lady’s heart if you can tell me the nature of Trowa Barton’s relationship with the bureau. Is he a Preventor agent?”  
  
_“Trowa Barton?”_ Nichol all but spat. “That arrogant little twerp? I should hope not.”  
  
Thus, a not very informative but still comforting alliance was formed. 


	4. When Spies have Boring Assignments

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Just watch your step around her." Trowa repeated. "She used to be a spy." Duo gave the phone an odd look. "Are you trying to tell me something, buddy?"

"...I... don’t get it." Duo admitted, and finally lowered his hand. He’d been scratching his head for several minutes now as he tried to make sense of what Trowa was saying, but if he kept going he’d start undoing his braid - the painful way.  
  
"Just watch your step around her." Trowa repeated. "She used to be a spy."  
  
Duo gave the phone an odd look. "Are you trying to tell me something, buddy?"  
  
"I mean it, Duo. Her infiltration technique is to worm her way into people’s hearts and make them feel like she’s belonged there since forever."  
  
"Hate to break it to you buddy, but you sound like an angry ex-boyfriend."  
  
Duo could practically _feel_ the look Trowa was giving him from the other end. He sighed. "Big boss Une hired her, didn’t she? She’ll have had a good reason for it. Relax, Middie hasn’t tried anything on me, she’s just been doing what Preventors sent her here to do. I’m not interested, anyway, so she her wiles wouldn’t get her anywhere even if she tried."  
  
"What about Hilde?"  
  
"What about her?"  
  
"Apparently Middie swings both ways."  
  
Duo froze. From where he was standing, he could see out the kitchen window and right into the scrap yard. He had a perfect view of the two women, leaning back against a fence together and chatting animatedly.  
  
The phone clattered to the floor.  
  
"Duo? Duo, are you still there?" 

  
  
  
  
"So you’ve never been down to the Earth? You really should sometime, there are so many magnificent sights to see."

"Easy for you to say. You Preventor agents get around - a job here, an investigation there. We get old friends from the agency over at the weirdest times. But if Duo and I leave our perch someone else will come in an d invade our territory, they’ll plunder our haunts and take over our clients. We’d be out of a job before we could say ‘Be back soon!’."

"Geeze, is the competition really that bad?"

"Colonists are industrious people, and salvaging is a lucrative market these days. But it’s partially our own fault. We’re a small, specialized company, just the two of us, while a lot of others in the business band together and form these big organizations that can cover huge sections of space and perform all kinds of services. Duo used to be in one of them - the Sweeper Group, maybe you’ve heard of them?"

"The name sounds familiar, but only vaguely. Why’d Duo leave?"

"Heh, that’s a long story. What it comes down to is that, for our own reasons, we both got caught up in the war during its last year. He ended up leaving the Sweepers for a while and met me, and by the time the war ended he just liked me better. That, and we both got a kick out of the thought of having our own company. Oh, the follies of youth! But yeah, he never did go back to the Sweepers."

"That’s so sweet."

"It is, isn’t it? Just don’t ever bring it up in front of him, he gets all macho and huffy when -" Duo’s mouth fell open from indignation, and Hilde’s gaze swept the stack of parts he was hiding behind.

Cue speak of the devil moment.

Hilde jumped a mile and let out a deafening shriek. Duo screamed in surprise, jumped back, and was promptly buried in falling scrap.

"DUO!" Hilde clutched at her heart as Duo scrambled upright. "What the hell are you doing there?! Were you spying on us?"

"Hilde, gimme a break! How am I supposed to test the rookie if you give me away?"

Middie’s surprised expression was replaced by a suspicious one. "Rookie? I may be new to the Preventors, but I am not a rookie." She planted her hands on her hips. "But you wouldn’t know either way, because we have never met before today. This has something to do with Trowa, doesn’t it?"

"I - well, you see - er, he may have..."

"You know Trowa?" Hilde interrupted.

"I did, a long time ago. It’s complicated." Middie said, and bit her lip.

"Complicated enough to warrant listening in on our conversations?" Hilde asked, her voice growing louder and sharper the further she turned toward Duo. He gulped.

"Well, I... used to be a spy, back when we knew each other. I infiltrated his unit and -"

"Did you now." Hilde gave Duo a meaningful look that was, in turn, rather interesting to look at. It was half reproachfully raised eyebrow and half amused smirk.

"...and it didn’t end well."

"Gee, doesn’t that sound familiar."

"Hilde, come on! I thought we were over that, you know I was only trying to -"

But Hilde waved him off with an indulgent smile. "Just saying, hun, just saying. Hey, did you know Duo and I hooked up partially because of Trowa?"

"Oh?" Middie looked from Hilde to Duo and back with a bewildered look, large parts of the conversation going over her head.

"Yeah, a couple of years ago he cracked his skull falling off a tightrope, and he and his sister stayed here while he recovered."

"Wait, he has a sister?"

"Sure he does."

"A real one?"

"Uh-huh. They didn’t know it at first, though. They started out just doing a knife throwing act together, but then -"

But then, as in _at that moment_ , Middie buried her face in her hands and doubled over with laughter. Hilde and Duo shared odd looks.

"Now I get it! I’ve been hitting on _his sister_ all this time, that’s why he’s still so paranoid!" Middie managed between peals of laughter. "Oh God, the _irony_."

"You’re hitting on Catherine?" Hilde asked. Middie nodded, wiping tears of mirth from her eyes. Grinning, Hilde hooked her arm through the other woman’s and led her back to the house. "Then I’ll give you some tips."

"Tips?"

"I used to date Cathy for a while. That’s how Duo and I hooked up; he got jealous, and when Cathy and Trowa went back to the circus, it turned out that a long distance relationship with her just couldn’t hold up with Duo here suddenly doing everything in his power to win my heart."

And with that the women left, chatting as animatedly as when he’d arrived. Duo, feeling like he'd been thrust through revolving doors, wondered whether telling Trowa about this would help any, or only make things worse. 


	5. When Spies meet Wise Old Masters

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Middie Une meets Pagan. He totally understands that she had so many martinis (shaken, not stirred) the night before.

Middie wouldn’t be surprised if the pounding in her head were to start drumming show tunes. More or less walking on her tiptoes to avoid banging her heels on the floor and sending even more agony echoing through her skull, she shuffled back to her textbook-marked seat, picked up the book and gingerly sat down. There was a grey-haired, formally dressed man sitting next to her, which hadn’t been the case when she’d left to get coffee.  
  
“Please tell me they’re not still making people take all kinds of tests and courses even at your age,” she said, in a display of conversational initiative that startled her.  
  
The man laughed as he looked at her. Well, Middie assumed that he was looking at her. His eyelids were almost absurdly droopy. Like one of those wrinkly dogs, only made of melting wax.  
  
“Oh, no, miss, I’m just here to get my gun permit renewed,” he said jovially. “When you get to a certain age, they stop making you take tests to see what you’ve learned, and start making you take tests to make sure you haven’t forgotten anything.”  
  
“And so it still never ends? Jesus Christ.” Her manners hit her in the temple with an alcoholic mallet. She pinched the bridge of her nose and swallowed through a surge of nausea. “Ugh. I’m sorry, I should mind my language. My manners, period.”  
  
“That’s quite alright, miss. I hope the party was enjoyable?”  
  
It certainly had been; Cathy and the circus had left for a new city and a new audience that morning, and she and Middie had said their (temporary) goodbyes over an abundance of drinks the night before. Martini’s for Middie, of course; shaken, not stirred, as a spy’s should be. Middie managed a smile, and somehow, the man managed to make his invisible eyes twinkle.  
  
“It was, thank you. I’m Middie, by the way. Agent Middie Une.”  
  
“Pleased to make your acquaintance, Miss Middie. My name is Pagan. I see you’re reliving your student days. Or perhaps catching up on them?”  
  
“This is what student days are _supposed_ to look like?” She almost laughed. “Then I’m catching up. I haven’t been to school since I was ten.”  
  
It was no wonder that she had so much to catch up on, really. This was the first time her employers ever cared about her following protocol. But that didn’t mean it didn’t still make her feel like a rebellious teenager.  
  
“Ah, I remember my time at the secret service academy.” Middie looked at her copy of _Preventer Regulations and Procedures_. _Screw it,_ she thought again, and turned all her hung-over attention to Pagan’s reminiscent ramblings. “The weeks were full of tests and drills and cramming, but during the weekends, all we did was turn our brains into stir-fry.”  
  
Now Middie really did laugh. And regretted it immediately. She took a sip of coffee, and felt better.  
  
“I must say, though, all the cleaning up that had to be done on Mondays came in handy when I retired as a civil servant and became a private servant.”  
  
Middie frowned, took in his attire again, wracked her brains. “You’re a _butler?_ ”  
  
At that moment, a Preventer agent with a clipboard walked up to them and said, “Mr Pagan?”  
  
“Ah, I’m afraid I must be going.” Pagan stood and bowed. “It was a pleasure talking to you, Miss Middie.”  
  
“Likewise,” she said. Then added, because she didn’t fancy boggling over this all throughout the test: “Just one more thing, if you don’t mind my asking - what made you decide to turn in your badge?”  
  
Pagan smiled in that way only grandparent-age people in the presence of grandchild-age people can. “The smell of fresh laundry and furniture polish.”


	6. When Spies have Interesting Assignments

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Relena peered at the laptop. "Who’s she?" "An old acquaintance of Trowa’s." "Should I bring my hostage negotiation voice?" "I doubt it." Heero crinkled his nose. "But Trowa seems to think so."

_Heero,_  
  
_I want to ask you a favour. One of the Preventors on the scene for tonight’s event is called Middie Une. She and I have a bit of a history together. Could you keep an eye on her for the evening and tell me what you think?_  
  
_\- Trowa_  
  
Grunting a little in the back of his throat, Heero opened a few more windows and started typing, reading, typing some more. Relena came in and sat down next to him on the bed, putting the finishing touch on her appearance with a pair of earrings that matched her gown.  
  
"Who’s she?" she asked, peering at the laptop.  
  
"An old acquaintance of Trowa’s."  
  
"Should I bring my hostage negotiation voice?"  
  
"I doubt it." Heero crinkled his nose. "But Trowa seems to think so."  
  
  
  


"Agent Une, this is agent Yuy. Please report to me at the rear balcony."

"Agent Yuy, this is agent Une. I’m on my way there."

Strictly speaking, she wasn’t supposed to leave her post. But Heero Yuy was part of the private security detail of one of the most important guests of the evening _and_ somehow managed to outrank everyone she’d served under in the three months she’d been with the Preventor agency thus far, despite not answering to anyone in said organization. Besides, she didn’t think commander Po would mind. Yuy and Sally apparently knew each other personally.

As the only scandal to have marred ESUN’s immensely popular Vice Foreign Minister’s saint-like record since the day her would-be-genocidal older brother had kicked the bucket, employee slash lover slash potential gold digger Heero Yuy’s face regularly graced the tabloids. Speculation about pretty much every part of his life and person was rife and the stories varied widely, but there was one thing everybody seemed to agree on: the VFM’s ‘personal bodyguard’ was an extremely dedicated man.

Heero Yuy was also a man who got straight to the point, and for that Middie instantly liked him.

He held up a slip of paper for her to read and said: "You mind telling me what’s going on?"

No interrogations, no listening in. It was almost a relief.

Emphasis on _almost_.

"Not again." Her eyes rolled themselves of their own accord; she had a feeling she knew what was going to be in the note. And yep, it was. Middie rolled her eyes again just for good measure. "Oh, come _on_. I finally decide to stop feeling sorry for myself and do something with my life, and what happens? I land myself right smack in the middle of the social circle of the guy that’s at the root of all the issues I’m trying to leave behind me."

Heero Yuy leaned back against the wall with his arms crossed over his chest and a ‘do explain’ expression on his face. Middie pinched the bridge of her nose and launched herself into yet another rendition of what had happened when they were kids.

"I don’t get it." she ended dejectedly. "I thought we’d talked it out, but every time I come across an old acquaintance of his he pulls something like this. And you know what the worst part is? At least half of them have done the exact same thing I did. He’s friends with this couple who met while one was infiltrating the other’s unit, and then the other went and stole information from yet another party. One of his buddies at the agency joined up with the Bartons during the Mariemeia uprising, and when I dig into the Preventor records for his files, what do I see? Trowa is listed as an freaking infiltration expert! How is what I did so much worse? I was just trying to feed my family. I don't expect him to ever _really_ trust me, but the least he could do is stop acting like I’m harbouring some personal grudge and came back to slaughter everyone with a rusty axe."

"That’s what happens in war. Once it’s happened there’s nothing you can do about it but move forward and work toward better things. Trowa knows that." Yuy said philosophically. Middie thought he must have picked it up from the VFM, and wondered briefly about the guy’s sex life.

"So he says, but it sure doesn’t look like it."

Suddenly Yuy pointed over her shoulder. "Do you see that guy over there?"

She turned and squinted. "Representative Winner? Of the L4 cluster?"

"That’s the one. For almost as long as I’ve known them, he and Trowa have been each other’s best friends - more, even."

A mercenary turned circus performer and one of the most wealthy and influential public figures in the colonies? That was like saying palm trees thrived on tundras. But there was something that sounded even _more_ out of place.

"Wait, you’re saying Trowa likes _guys?"_

"Trowa likes Quatre. I wouldn’t know about his preferences otherwise, I’m not among them." Yuy shrugged carelessly. "But take a wild guess as to what the worst thing Quatre ever did to Trowa is."

"Sic a barber on him? I dunno, but I’m willing to bet he never stabbed him in the back."

"No. He shot him in the face."

Middie’s mouth fell open.

"Blew Trowa’s MS right to pieces, with Trowa still inside it. We didn’t find out he’d survived until weeks later, when a friend found him at the circus with all his memories gone."

"Geeze." Middie took a minute to let that sink in, momentarily stunned, and then threw her hands in the air. "So what am _I_ doing wrong?"

"Either he needs a shrink, you need to leave, or it’s something you’ve overlooked."

"Like what? He _says_ he believes that I’m not here to bring down the Preventors, or do him in, or even repeat what I did back then with his sister."

"Wait - repeat what?"

Middie gesticulated awkwardly. "‘Pretend’ to fall in love with him and then basically leaving him as the sole survivor of a massacre."

"You didn’t pretend?"

"...no."

"Did he reciprocate?"

"...I don’t think so?"

Yuy raised an eyebrow at her. Middie’s mind started working so fast she soon decided that she needed a drink. Meanwhile, a woman was weaving and ducking her way toward them in an impressive display of covert people-chess. Middie recognized her as his minister lover, Relena Darlian, when Yuy suddenly stood up straight and straightened his tie.

"I’d start with that." he said over his shoulder, already on his way.


	7. When Spies meet No-One. In Fact, This Never Happened.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Summary information is classified. If I told you I’d have to kill you.

Nothing to see here, move along. This is a perfectly ordinary movie theatre on a perfectly ordinary night. Middie Une’s presence here is perfectly natural; she likes movies.  
  
True, she detests slasher flicks. That’s something she has always been quite vocal about. Some people are just squeamish about all those gross medical inaccuracies, okay. But she has every right to make an exception when her favourite actor - whatshisname, one of the dark-haired ones - has a minor supporting role and the director is known for masterpieces such as... you know what, never mind.  
  
The point is, the exception is what makes the rule.  
  
So Middie gets herself a big box of popcorn and a regular-sized soda, and while she’s at it, also two types of chocolate bar (only one of which she likes, but did you know that your tastes change every so many years?). She has to dig all the way to the bottom of her overstuffed purse to find her wallet, but eventually returns to the lobby with her purchases.  
  
There, she loiters until the movie begins. She starts in on her popcorn and plays with one of her big flower earrings the whole time. The impractical and flashy things aren’t really her style, nor is the floral scarf serving as a head band, but they match her equally un-Middie-like colour-explosion of an outfit. What? The style is ‘in’. She’s allowed to succumb to peer pressure from people five to ten years younger than herself every once in a while.  
  
And if she eyes a lot of people up while she waits, so what? Middie may be head over heels in love with someone already, the object of her affection isn’t as eager to dive into the ten-year House-Dog-Ring-Adoption plan as she could be. It’s only logical for Middie to keep her options open. Even though she really doesn’t want to.  
  
Oh, look, there’s another blonde with flower earrings, and a floral scarf around her neck. And the dark-haired man with his arm around her waist just paid for the same chocolate bars Middie got. Their eyes meet briefly, and the man gives Middie a tiny salute with the candy before passing one of the bars to his companion - who adjusts her scarf before taking it. Middie gives her left earring a flick with her right hand and promptly ignores the duo.  
  
They’re just two random people. Nothing interesting about them.  
  
The doors to the auditorium are finally opened and the crowd filters inside. Halfway through the commercials, Middie decides to make sure her bladder is truly empty while she still can. The random other blonde - who had entered without the random man - does too, and through a completely coincidental accident, they bump into each other as the latter exits her row. Middie’s purse slides off her shoulder and its contents spill to the ground. There is much apologizing as both women crouch down to gather them up, and before the helpful theatre attendant reaches them with a flashlight, absolutely nothing changes hands.  
  
Nope. Nothing at all. There’s just a lot of junk to pick up.  
  
A few minutes later and one or two things from her purse that rolled too far away lighter (which were not at all random space-fillers and will _so_ be missed, when she gets home she will lament how she could possibly have been so hasty and careless), Middie bypasses the bathrooms the other woman disappears into entirely, instead clutching her phone and looking ever so worried. As Middie passes the cafeteria, she doesn’t spare a glance at the random dark-haired man and his own heated phone call.  
  
The movie in the other auditorium has just ended, and Middie blends in with the crowd pouring out of the building. She’s allowed to change her mind, after all. And if a car happens to pull up and pick her up as if on clue, well, coincidences happen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (It's Chris Marley and Ralph Kurt.)


	8. When Spies have Days Off

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I’ve heard so much about you, I’d love to get to know you." "Oh crud, is even the government on my case now?" Relena laughed. "Nothing like that. I don’t think Trowa would approve that I’m taking you out for coffee all by my lonesome."

_Dear Relena,_

_Again, I’m sorry, but I’m not talking to Heero until he admits he’s an ass and stops acting like it. Please tell him we’re pulling down tomorrow and our next stand is just a few hours away from you. I don’t want to just hang around the lot when you guys are so close._

_-Trowa_

_PS: I’m sure you wouldn’t be as stubborn as Heero, so if you ever see Middie again could YOU tell me what you think?_

Sighing wearily, Relena pushed the laptop into Heero’s lap, put out the lights on her side of the bed, and snuggled under the covers.

She was just beginning to doze off when Heero huffed. "Would _you_ have interrogated her? He won’t even tell us what to look for."

Relena grumbled and swatted him with a pillow.  
  
  
  
  
  
It was a good day to have a day off. Pleasantly warm beneath a light deck of clouds, with people milling about and having fun everywhere you looked.

Middie had gotten in a good few hours of people-spotting and spending away her gloomy thoughts when a female voice suddenly said: "Excuse me?"

Middie turned to the bubbly-looking teenager who had addressed her. "Yes?"

"You’re Middie Une, aren’t you?"

Middie’s hand discreetly clenched around the purse holding her gun. "I am. How would you know?"

An impish grin came over the girl’s face as she lifted her glasses. "You spoke to my boyfriend at last month’s ministry ball."

Middie blinked once, twice, then did a double-take. "Oh my god, I hadn’t recognized you, Miss Darlian." she said, slightly aghast. At the way ESUN’s Vice-Foreign Minister Relena Darlian _looked_ , that is, not at her own failure to recognize her.

"That’s fine, it just means my disguise is working." Darlian said brightly.

It certainly was. The minister’s hair was up in two extremely childish high ponytails, stylishly garish, thick-rimmed glasses threw all her facial proportions out of whack, and her clothing and accessories displayed perfectly just how psychedelic and hideous the most recent fashion trends were. She looked like an overgrown teenybopper instead of the respected and accomplished politician she was.

"Miss Darlian, what are you doing here? And where’s Yuy, aren’t you supposed to have someone with you?"

"Heaven forbid that things are so bad I can’t even leave the house unsupervised! No, I’m perfectly capable of spending my free days on my own, thank you. Heero’s gone off with Trowa. Did you know the circus is in town?"

Middie nodded. "But then - why the disguise, Miss?"

Darlian shrugged. "Convenience. Don’t call the psych ward just yet, but I actually _like_ to pay for what I buy. Can I offer you something to drink or eat? I’ve heard so much about you, I’d love to get a chance to talk to you."

"Oh crud, is even the government on my case now?"

Relena laughed. "Nothing like that, I’d just like to get to know you. I don’t think Trowa would approve that I’m taking you out for coffee all by my lonesome, anyway."

Five minutes later they were eating ice-cream on a terrace, and just-Relena-please asked: "So, do you live around here?"

"No, I’ve been living out of hotels for the past half year. The Preventor agency likes to keep part of its agents mobile so it doesn’t have to build big offices like HQ all across the Earth sphere and can just call large numbers of ‘drifters’ to the nearest smaller office in case of emergency."

"That’s something we have in common. I hop from city to city and colony to colony for my job, so I sometimes spend more time in hotels than at home. Good thing I still live with my mother, huh? My cat would be long dead if she wasn’t there to take care of it."

"My family is on the other side of the globe right now. I haven’t seen them in months."

"Do you miss them?"

"Even more than I’d thought. But I couldn’t stay there anymore, I really needed to get out, put some distance between us and get my own foothold on life. As much as I love them, having to provide for them got me into some pretty dark places back in the day. I needed something of a fresh start, you know?"

"And people wonder why I’ve always said making peace was more important than getting favourable results through war."

"Heh. Yeah, unless they were the ones hiring me, people were never exactly thrilled about the way I worked either."

"Isn’t there some kind of saying about never trusting spies and politicians?"

"Dunno, but I think there’s one about there being no difference between the two?"

The women laughed together. Middie watched Relena dig for chocolate flakes in her sorbet, looking every inch the trendy college girl she was impersonating, and felt bold.

"So Yuy is totally okay with you going out like this?"

"Not really, but Trowa was very adamant that Heero’d take him far away from the circus for a while, so I... well, let’s just say he’s never actually seen me in these clothes."

"I had an inkling. He doesn’t strike me as the type to let you out of his sights. Ever." Relena raised an eyebrow at her, and for a moment Middie feared she’d crossed a line. "I mean that he seems very dedicated to his job, not anything -"

But to her surprise, Relena laughed. "What everybody always fails to realize is that guarding me is not Heero’s _job_."

"Huh?"

"Heero is not my employee. I don’t pay him anything - he has access to all my assets because we live together. But he’s got all the right clearances and qualifications to handle my security on a professional level, so he just does. Kind of like other men paint and tinker around the house."

While Middie tried to take in this sudden reversal of everything the tabloids had ever told her, Relena leaned her head on her hand and studied her.

"So, does Trowa know you’re in the neighbourhood?"

"I’m not sure..." She and Cathy had exchanged cell phone numbers a while ago, and she had asked Middie to come visit them whenever her job allowed it. Middie had been ‘on the sawdust trail’ in between Preventor assignments ever since, switching hotels every so often as the circus moved around the country. "But if Trowa was really that desperate to get off circus grounds, I’m guessing he does. He was probably expecting me to come around to see Cathy."

"Are you going to?"

"No."

"I heard you two were dating. Has something happened?"

Middie bit her lip. "Trowa happened. And your bod- boyfriend happened. Hell, AC 190 happened! I thought I was over the crush I had on him back then - it was way too Stockholm syndrome-y even for my own taste - and I thought he never liked me in the first place, but I’m not so sure anymore. It’s just been really confusing lately."

"Have you tried talking to Trowa about it?"

"He’s kind of been avoiding me."

"Right. Figures." Relena tilted back her cup to get at the last of the sugary sludge. "I take it you were pity-shopping?"

Middie nodded.

"Want some company?"

"Sure. You might even be good for discount."


	9. When Spies meet the No-Nonsense, Unimpressed Truth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Middie Une meets Sylvia Noventa. Two young women who crossed paths with gundam pilots and lived to tell the tale. They wouldn’t necessarily agree on what kind of tale, though.

Middie knocked.  
  
“Come in!”  
  
Sylvia Noventa, her assigned charge for this week’s conference, poked her head out from behind her desk as a greeting.  
  
“Middie Une, right?”  
  
“Yes ma’am. I’m ready to go when you are.”  
  
“Yes. Right.” Noventa looked to her left, then to her right. “Do you see my purse anywhere?”  
  
“Um,” Middie scanned the room. “No, sorry.”  
  
“I could’ve sworn I’d brought it with me this morning...”  
  
And back behind the desk Sylvia Noventa dove.  
  
_Gosh,_ Middie thought, amused, _another ordinary human being. Who would have thought even the greatest of the great could be so normal._  
  
“Middie Une, Middie Une...” Noventa muttered distractedly, re-emerging almost immediately and crossing the office. “A relative of Lady’s. How’s that working out for you?”  
  
“I suppose it doesn’t hurt.”  
  
Noventa let out a laugh, peering behind the couch. “No need to be cautious, trust me, I know all about it. The doors my grandfather’s reputation opened, you have no idea. Some people have to bang the doors down to get anywhere in life, others have porters holding them open for them. You’ve met Relena, right?”  
  
“Relena Darlian?”  
  
“Of course. She said you’re alright.” She flashed Middie a smile on her way to the closet on the other side of the room. “It’s why I asked for you as my escort. You’ve been in the business since you were young, right? Ever since the war?”  
  
“Yes,” Middie said as Noventa pushed aside a few articles of spare clothing in plastics bag on hangers, and then boxes full of files. “Though back then it wasn’t the kind of work I’m doing now.”  
  
“Of course not,” Middie wasn’t sure if her mumbled words were referring to her or the lack of purse hidden behind last year’s paperwork. “Kids and war, that’s never a nice combo. I meet a lot of former child soldiers and the like for my work, and phew.” Noventa shook her head. “Stories that make your skin crawl and your stomach turn, without exception. I’ve gotta say that one of the things I like best about Preventer is how they don’t discriminate based on past affiliations and allow anyone to transform their past into a force of good for the future.”  
  
Middie murmured in agreement and tried not to look too spoken to.  
  
Noventa looked about the room again, bottom lip caught between her teeth, and suddenly said: “You know I even met the guy who killed my grandfather?”  
  
Middie, who had only yesterday brushed up on her history for the occasion, felt her jaw drop. “You mean the gundam pilot?”  
  
Inexplicably, bafflingly, Noventa grinned at her.  
  
“There’s a gundam pilot in Preventor?!”  
  
“No, no, I mean I met him during the war.”  
  
“Oh.” Middie deflated. “But - how? Why?” And, awestruck and adopting Noventa’s air of not caring that they were talking about the killer of a deceased loved one: “What was he like?”  
  
“Honestly?” She laughed. “I thought he was such a stinking coward. He came to me practically begging me to shoot him, after he’d done the same to a bunch of grandfather’s other close relatives. He wanted someone to either forgive him or punish him. He felt so sorry for himself for walking into Treize Khushrenada’s trap he thought the best course of action was to walk up to all those grieving families and say ‘hey, I killed your loved ones, whatcha gonna do about it?’.”  
  
Middie felt a small part of herself, the part that had, for years, hero-worshipped the gundam pilots that played such a crucial part in the war, and the somewhat less small part that knew self-pity like the back of her hand, curl into a foetal position to cry. The greatest of the great, indeed.  
  
Noventa sighed. “Then again, he was just a boy. So very, very young. I was seventeen at the time, but he couldn’t have been older than fifteen.”  
  
“No way,” Middie said, reeling even more.  
  
“You think the Alliance were the only ones who played dirty?”  
  
“Of course not.” She couldn’t keep an offended note from her voice. “It’s just... a _gundam pilot_. Those guys are legends. You’d think someone entrusted with such a monumental task would be a little more...”  
  
“That’s true. Oh well. Don’t get me wrong, he got over it eventually. We all know he turned out alright in the end, pulled his head out of his you-know-what, saved the world, got the girl.” She snorted. “Boy, did he ever do well for himself.”  
  
“You make it sound like you’ve met him more than once.”  
  
“Oh, I come over for tea all the time,” Noventa said, with a laugh Middie suspected was at her expense. Then she cursed. “Where is that stupid purse?!”


	10. When Spies have Family Outings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trowa frowned. “It wouldn’t have bothered me so much if the past hadn’t decided to come haunt me physically.” “Oh, poor Uncle.” Mariemeia intoned sarcastically. “Woe. Are you done yet?”

“I know she’s Lady’s cousin, but I don’t want you to get too friendly with her. You were my niece first.”  
  
“Can I go up yet?”  
  
“Mei...” Trowa sighed.  
  
“Trowa...” Mariemeia mimicked.  
  
There was a brief staring contest, which Mariemeia lost. “I know, I know. It’s a very tragic story and I’m sure it would be a hit in the theatres. But there comes a time when you have to leave the past behind you and stop letting it bug you.” she said mock-sagely. “You don’t see me moping about not being ruler of the world, do you?”  
  
“You’re not? I could have sworn...”  
  
“Less talking and more working.” Mariemeia bopped him over the head playfully as he kneeled before her, tugging at another strap on the harnass.  
  
Trowa frowned. “It wouldn’t have bothered me so much if the past hadn’t decided to come haunt me _physically.”_  
  
“Oh, poor _Uncle_.” Mariemeia intoned sarcastically. “Woe. Are you done yet?”  
  
He checked the fastenings one more time. “Watch your mouth or I might just let you fall.”  
  
“Whatever. Now lemme at that tightrope!”  
  
  
  
  
It did not take long for Middie to decide that she and Dorothy Catalonia, her cousin’s adopted daughter’s favourite cousin, did not get along. It took only slightly longer to realise that Dorothy did not care and did, in fact, enjoy riling her up. And that she was rather good at it. By the time Dorothy managed to steer the conversation they had while strolling around the circus grounds to her love life, Middie’s most prominent thought was that she must get a kick out of cruel and unusual punishment.  
  
“Have you considered a threesome?”  
  
“Say what?”  
  
“A threesome. Having sex with two other people at once. Or a relationship with two other people at once, but I personally much prefer for those to be restricted to the facilitation of sex.”  
  
“I did not want to know that. And are you kidding? They’re brother and sister, that would be incest!”  
  
“Oh no, not with Catherine. It’s no fun if you’re not the only woman in the threeway, anyhow. I mean you, Trowa and Quatre.”  
  
“You’re crazy.”  
  
“That’s what they all say, my dear. But then they try it and somehow miraculously change their minds.”  
  
“Oh - whatever! No, just no. It wouldn’t solve things anyway.”  
  
“Well, there’s no rule saying you have to stop at three. Make it your own private swinger’s club. Trowa and Catherine wouldn’t have to lay a finger on each other.”  
  
“Crazy doesn’t even begin to cover it, does it?”  
  
“So easily offended. Pity. Your dear cousin’s never had such problems.”  
  
“Oh no, I am not listening to this. I am not that close to Lady, and I never want to be.”  
  
“Sigh. I miss the days when everyone still had more interesting buttons to push. When man’s folly had more far-reaching consequences than awkward workfloor relations or an empty pocket. Miss Relena and Mister Quatre are far too busy these days, and Lady Une never did have a sense of humor. I’m going to dry up and wither, at this rate. Maybe I should quit business - transport was never as interesting as weaponry, anyway. Go into politics instead. Or theatre.”  
  
Dorothy’s expression suddenly turned disturbingly sly. “Though come to think of it...” she purred. “So you’re a former spy, aren’t you Middie?”  
  
“Don’t. Even. Go there.” Middie ground out through gritted teeth.  
  
Dorothy, of course, _was_ going to go there. But Middie was saved by the timely arrival of Trowa and a skipping Mariemeia.  
  
“At each other’s throats already?” the girl asked cheerfully.  
  
“Why am I not surprised?” Trowa said.  
  
“You stay out of it!” Middie snapped, while Dorothy almost cooed: “Oh no, we’re really hitting it off now, aren’t we Middie?”  
  
“And you shut up!” Middie went on. She demonstratively turned to Mariemeia. “Did you have fun back there?”  
  
“It was great! I hardly ever fell at all.” she said proudly, and then cocked her head and adopted an expression eerily similar to Dorothy’s earlier one. “What were you talking about?”  
  
“Nothing that would concern a young lady like yourself.”  
  
“Sex.” Dorothy answered casually.  
  
“Dorothy!” Middie exclaimed. “She’s twelve!”  
  
“Indeed, going to hit puberty soon. Just the right age to start educating her. No point in keeping her in the dark about the birds and the bees when she’s already so well acquainted with other adult affairs.”  
  
“Lady is going to kill you when she finds out.” Middie deadpanned. She had half a mind to make it happen.  
  
Mariemeia made a face. “Une doesn’t mind if I know about such things. She has me guarded well enough that I won’t be able to do anything with my knowledge.”  
  
“We all have to make our sacrifices.” Dorothy stroked Mariemeia’s hair with something that could pass for reverence. “When the time is right, I’ll take you out into the field and show you the finest the world of adults has to offer. Patience, little one. One day.” She heaved a passionate sigh, pressed a hand to her chest, and abruptly turned to Trowa and Middie, all smirk and twinkling eyes again.  
  
“Not that I am at all opposed to combining the two, but I’ve come to rather resent my aristocratic upbringing for teaching me all about war but nothing about sex. The indignation of having to be submissive to your inferiors in the bedroom while you learn! I’m not letting the same happen to Mister Treize’s only daughter.”  
  
Middie, whose thoughts had began to run along the almost appreciative lines of ‘now here’s a woman who knows how to entertain herself’, came to an abrupt and unpleasant halt. Trashy magazines were one thing, but there were some people she really did not want to think about that way. “There you go again! _Too much information_. Does that phrase mean nothing to you?”  
  
Trowa smirked. “Dorothy’s just bored. You should see her when she’s actually got something to work with.”  
  
“Such sweet words, Trowa. And here I thought you were trying for monogamy out of respect for dear Quatre.”  
  
Middie facepalmed.  
  
Dorothy laughed. “If you’re going to be a part of this family you’ll see a whole lot worse.”  
  
“My side of the family was raised with a little sense of propriety.” Middie growled from behind her hand, a hot blush creeping up her neck.  
  
“Too bad Mariemeia’s adoption brought me and mine in, then, isn’t it?” Dorothy purred, and suddenly Middie began to suffer from proximity anxiety. “And Cathy is no paragon of modesty either.”  
  
“Cathy and I are in no way, shape or form related to each other.” Middie protested. “We’re dating - almost dating. That’s different.”  
  
“On the contrary, dear. Didn’t you know that Trowa has been Mariemeia’s uncle for years now?”  
  
_“What?”_  
  
“Now you’re pushing it, Dorothy.”  
  
Mariemeia sighed and headed off to the lion cages. “Grown-ups are so silly.”


	11. When Spies meet Relatives for Rent

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Middie meets Marquis Weyridge and Mrs Darlian, right when she could use some elders to get her out of trouble.

The following scene requires some historical context. (But not too much.)  
  
Before Middie Une became a spy, she had the biggest mouth on the block, her opinions were always ready to make themselves heard, and she naturally managed to embarass her parents often and deeply; afterwards, she guarded her words like they were rabid dogs that would tear out your eyeballs when let loose, seemed to have forgotten how to give a straight answer, and generally acted like you’d expect a fourteen-year-old to do when she has just managed to fight her way out of almost three years of playing trojan horse for an overzealous warlord. Long and depressing story short, it took a long time for her family, friends and a shrink or two to get her to open her mouth again, and once they did, nobody could quite bring themselves to tell her to shut it again - even when she really, _really_ should have shut her mouth.  
  
Fast forward another ten years or so, and Middie had come to terms with the fact that putting a lid on it required a degree of control over what came out of her mouth that she simply no longer had. She had grown used to her big mouth getting her into trouble, and figured that if it hadn’t killed her yet, it was no use worrying over the possibility that it one day still might.  
  
That is, until she became a Preventer agent and suddenly had to deal with a strict pseudo-military ranking system (never mind that half of her superior officers didn’t seem to give a hoot) and even stricter security protocols. Part of her was taken straight back to her ten-year-old self, and every near-slip up was like a small but not insignificant wrecking ball against the mental wall she had built around her early teens. The assault slowly but surely built up to the present; in particular, the moment when two kind strangers, a middle-aged woman and an elderly man, found her on the verge of panic two blocks away from the convention centre she was supposed to be on duty in, contemplating throwing up in a trash can.  
  
It was all a bit of a blur afterwards. Lots of “Are you okay, you look like you’re about to faint.” and “Here, sit down on this bench and take a deep breath.”-type things, a cool, wet handkerchief to press to her face, and one of them letting her squeeze their hands to mush as she tried to calm down.  
  
Eventually the man said “I see from your uniform that you’re with the Preventer’s. Should they be contacted about what happened to you?”, to which she managed to hollowly answer: “No. I am a disgrace to Preventers everywhere. It would be better if my employers never heard of this episode and I threw myself in the way of a serial killer at the soonest possible notice.”  
  
Which was of course followed by the question “Poor dear, whatever makes you say that?”, and she could have smacked herself for letting her mouth run away from her _yet again._  
  
But it didn’t stop her from answering. Even now, Middie firmly believed that spitting the words out was much healthier than allowing them to cower and hide in the back of your throat.  
  
“I talked back to the Minister of Trade when he made one of those patronizing veiled insults of his,” she whispered, not daring to look up at the pair that had come to her aid. “and he flew into a rage at my nerve and demanded to see my ID, implying that I was a _Political Perspective_ reporter in disguise and I’d snuck in to stir up trouble and bait him into saying things I could twist out of perspective for an article. But I’ve only been in Russia for two days and my Mobile Stand-By ID turns out to be a month overdue for replacement and someone screwed up my name on the staff list to make it say Lady instead of Middie and nobody here knows me or can vouch for me and, and -”  
  
She couldn’t quite go into the way she’d all but fled the moment someone mentioned going back to the local branch to get things sorted out and ended up weighing the pros and cons of emptying her stomach in the nearest receptacle. Luckily, she didn’t have to.  
  
The woman patted her hand. “What did you say your name was, dear?”  
  
“Middie. Middie Une.”  
  
“And someone trustworthy to vouch for your identity and involvement with the Preventer agency would suffice to solve this situation?”  
  
“Yes, but where would I find -” Middie stopped and stared. “But why would you? And who _are you?_ ”  
  
The woman gave her an eye-crinkling smile. “I am Maryne Darlian, and this is my good friend, the Marquis Weyridge. My daughter Relena mentioned a Middie Une to me once. You fit her description to the T.”  
  
Middie’s mouth fell open. _“She did?”_  
  
“Relena doesn’t meet a lot of people outside of her work. She greatly enjoyed your company that day, so of course she would tell her mother all about it.”  
  
“Of course,” Middie echoed, still too stunned to contribute anything of her own. You go shopping with a living legend once and Lady Luck never lets you hear the end of it.  
  
“Are you sure about this, Maryne?” the Marquis asked.  
  
“Yes, quite.” Mrs Darlian stood up from the bench and held out her hand to Middie. “Are you alright to go back, dear? Time’s getting on, we should hurry if we don’t want to be late.”  
  
“Um, yes.” Middie got up so fast she forgot to take the proffered hand. “Are you _really_ sure?”  
  
“If Maryne’s way doesn’t work, we can always claim you’re my granddaughter,” the Marquis joked.  
  
Mrs Darlian shook her head fondly. “You and your granddaughters. You say that to every pretty young girl you meet.”  
  
While the Marquis and the Vice Foreign Minister’s mother exchanged banter, Middie seized the opportunity to rake her hands through her hair, say a little prayer, and make some mental notes.  
  
_– Call dad and have nice, relaxing talk first thing tomorrow._  
_– Tardiness and inattention are sins just like lack of self-restraint. Get the damn ID renewed._  
_– Russia supposed to be Vodkaland. Find out if true._  
_– Actually, stress-drinking is bad too. Start caring once hangover kicks in._


	12. When Spies have Utterly Bizarre Assignments

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “First they came for the genocidal would-be dictators, then they came for the gundam pilots...” “What do you think she’ll do, tell some international peacekeeping organization?” Sally asked jokingly.

“I can’t believe Preventors would just let her in on this, even if you're in a hurry.”  
  
“What do you think she’ll do, rat’em out to some international peacekeeping organization?” Sally asked jokingly.  
  
“First they came for the genocidal would-be dictators, then they came for the gundam pilots...”  
  
Sally sighed. “Trowa, hun, aside from her involvement with you, she is _spotless_ as far as Preventor agents go. Her future in the organization looks very bright. Not to debase your experiences with her or anything, but Lady just doesn’t have those experiences.”  
  
“Nobody does. That’s the problem.” Trowa said lowly.  
  
Sally looked at his vidphone image sympathetically. “You can’t expect this taciturn bunch to throw their own judgement aside because of something that happened ten years ago, but you know they’re not doing it just to spite you, right?”  
  
“Can I at least expect them to stop rubbing it in?”  
  
“I think that would vary from person to person.” Sally said with a smirk.  
  
  
  
“So, you clear on what to do, agent Une?”  
  
“Yes ma’am.”  
  
“Let me hear you repeat it.”  
  
Middie summarized her responsibilities, ending with: “I do not hesitate to flash my badge and look either intimidating or charming, and no matter what happens, I do not take action against our guests without your express permission.”  
  
“Very good. Now make sure you do that.”  
  
“Yes ma’am! Uhm, just so we’re clear, would your death count as permission to act?”  
  
Sally considered this. “Yeah, I guess so.”  
  
Middie leaned back against the wall with her hands in her pockets while Sally resumed staring out the terminal windows. “So who are these guests, anyway?”  
  
“Just some old friends.”  
  
“Old friends who just happen to get more secrecy and security than the VFM in a hot zone?”  
  
Sally smirked. “I thought you’d have gotten used to Preventor’s eccentricities by now, agent Une. You could say these two are like sleeper agents coming out of deep cover for updates and reevaluation.”  
  
“Deep cover on _Mars?_ It’s deader than a desert up there, why would we need agents all the way on Mars?”  
  
“Mars is a good refuge for dissidents who don’t agree with how things are done in the rest of the Earth Sphere. That it’s so quiet there is in large part thanks to them and their efforts at spotting and neutralizing anti-ESUN sentiments in the Settlement. Oh, that’s their shuttle! Come on agent Une, there’s work to be done.”  
  
The new arrivals were a man with large sunglasses and a curtain of blond hair obscuring his features, and a dark-haired woman sporting the side-swept long bangs that were trendy five years or so ago (and which, for some unfathomable reason, some people just never got rid of).  
  
“Sally!”  
  
“Noin!”  
  
Sally and the woman threw themselves at each other the moment they lay eyes on each other. Much hugging and exited, outsider-proof chatter followed. Middie was almost sure the look the obscure-faced man gave her was as awkward as the one she gave him.  
  
“Hi.” she said.  
  
“Hi.” he replied, and took off his sunglasses.  
  
Middie let out a shriek that ended only when she had her gun in both hands and trained on him. Milliardo Peacecraft looked mildly embarrassed, at most.  
  
“Uhm, Miss Po,” he said, pocketing his sunglasses _very slowly_. “Didn’t you say your partner was trustworthy?”  
  
Sally turned, her friend peeking over her shoulder.  
  
“Hey, why are your glasses off?” the dark-haired woman asked, at the same time Sally said: “Oh Middie, cut that out. We’ve talked about this.”  
  
“ _T - talked?”_ Middie managed to croak, wide eyes darting between Sally and Milliardo Peacecraft. “You said there’d be special guests. Old friends. _Agents._ You didn’t say anything about _him!”_  
  
Sighing, Sally walked over to her, pushed the gun down and laboriously pried it from Middie’s hands, muttering soothingly about orders and deep breaths and possible bribes while Middie spluttered something about giant space lasers and Swiss cheese. Without her gun to protect her, Middie was hard-pressed not to physically hide behind her superior.  
  
“Middie,” Sally said at length, one hand firmly on her shoulder. “These are Lucrezia Noin, a-k-a Preventor Fire, and Milliardo Peacecraft, a-k-a Preventor Wind.”  
  
“A-k-a the man who blew a hole in the planet!”  
  
“Later, hun. Noin, Mill, this is Middie Une, Lady’s cousin.”  
  
“It’s nice to meet you,” Noin said with a knowing smile. “Though I can imagine the feeling’s not exactly mutual.”  
  
“Why is he not dead?” Middie hissed through her teeth, eying the man tensely.  
  
“It was an accident, I swear.” Milliardo Peacecraft answered.  
  
“You didn’t tell her beforehand?” Noin asked Sally.  
  
“I didn’t think she’d recognize him. There’s very little footage of you as the White Fang’s leader available to the general media, so most people are more familiar with the image of Zechs Merquise.” Milliardo Peacecraft quickly put his glasses back on, but Sally snorted. “Too late for that now.”  
  
Middie returned Sally’s apologetic look with a horrified one. “You would have let me spend the entire ride in the presence of a genocidal maniac _zombie_ without telling me?!”  
  
“Would you even have come with me if I’d told you sooner? If there’d been someone more suitable available on such short notice I wouldn’t have taken you with me, but I _need_ a backup. We can’t have a former genocidal would-be dictator just run loose, now can we?”  
  
Middie did not think it was funny. “So you’re saying _neither_ of us is hallucinating? _This guy blew a hole in the planet!_ Why isn’t he dead, why aren’t we arresting him?!”  
  
“He got better.” Sally said with a shrug.  
  
It was so unbelievable, it left Middie speechless.  
  
“Allow me to explain.” Noin butted in. “Sally and I are old friends from back in the war, Milliardo and Lady know each other through the late Treize Khushrenada, and Milliardo and I go back all the way to childhood. When Libra went down, Sally and I joined the Preventors while Milliardo disappeared, presumed dead. He came back to aid in stopping the Mariemeia Rebellion, and Lady decided to allow us to leave for Mars free of prosecution. We’ve been doing good deeds over there ever since, disguised as ordinary Settlement workers.”  
  
“Noin’s a Preventor through and through.” Sally added with a grin. “She has him on a tight leash. Right, Mill?”  
  
“Tighter than you know.” Milliardo Peacecraft said with a mild smile.  
  
Noin held up her right hand and wriggled her fingers - one of which bore a golden ring.  
  
“You got married?” Sally exclaimed. “Why didn’t you tell me?”  
  
“It happened right before we left. And guess what else?”  
  
“Don’t tell me there’s a baby on the way.”  
  
“Yes!”  
  
With another round of loud exclamations, Sally and Noin disappeared into a world of their own, which excluded Middie and everything beyond the shoulder of a bizarrely meek Milliardo Peacecraft’s arm, which Noin held in a vice grip.  
  
Middie was struck with the thought that she suddenly knew exactly what Trowa was going through.  
  
And that the end of this shift might be the time to get very very drunk. 


	13. When Spies meet the Undead Doctor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Middie meets Iria Winner. ’Cause she aten’t dead yet.

Monsters, monsters everywhere. In the streets, in the stores and eating-houses, in the _hospital_. Cheerful monsters who sang horrible songs (in various forms of ‘horrible’) ate each other on sight and happily made a show of it for each other’s amusement.  
  
Middie loved it.  
  
There was a horde of creatures in the waiting area, ranging from a living statue, painted gold from head to toe, to a djinn, to a bare-chested man in a sequined skirt with a trian imitating a snake’s tail, to a massive, incredibly hairy man with a fluffy tail stuck into the back of his pants and fake wolf ears peeking out from his wild hair. The doctor’s face was grey and covered in dangling patches of plastic ‘skin’.  
  
She interpreted Middie’s unstoppable grin correctly and said by way of greeting: “You picked a great time to visit the colony, agent Une.”  
  
“I’ll have to thank Preventer for this assignment,” she said. All the more because she hadn’t been able to spend time with Cathy in ages, and they were now finally on the same colony again.  
  
“Have you celebrated Halloween before?” doctor Winner asked as they sat down on opposit sides of her desk.  
  
“No, it’s never been popular where I’m from. It looks like I’ve been missing out.”  
  
“It’s a recent development for our colony as well. Quatre -” Middie had learned during her initial appointment that the doctor was one of the ridiculous amounts of sisters the colony representative had. “- is a great fan of anything supernatural, so when he was introduced to the practice of Halloween by a friend almost ten years ago, he introduced it to all the people of the colony and managed to single-handedly popularize it. Though in a modified form, of course,” she added modestly.  
  
“I wouldn’t know the difference,” Middie said brightly. “But it looks like you’re having a blast. Representative Winner must be a popular guy to throw such a big party.”  
  
“He works hard to make the colony happy,” doctor Winner said with a fond smile. Then she winked. “But let’s be honest - who could resist that cute face?”  
  
Thinking of her own adorable baby brothers, Middie grinned back.  
  
“Well then, back to business. Your test results came in, and as expected, you’re perfectly healthy. In my professional opinion, whatever symptoms you had upon your arrival in space were a result of the sudden drastic change in atmosphere. It’s a common ailment. Just make sure to get your inoculations and take the recommended supplements whenever you travel through outer space, and you should be fine.”  
  
“Will do. But is there really nothing to be done against the space-sickness?”  
  
“No, I’m sorry. Your body and mind will have to get used to it the hard way.”  
  
“How do you colonists cope with this?”  
  
The doctor just shrugged apologetically.  
  
“Oh well,” Middie sighed. She stood and shook the doctor’s hand. “Thank you for everything, doctor. It was a pleasure.”  
  
“Not a problem. And don’t worry about any flesh-eating creatures you might meet out there. Even they aren’t allowed to eat anything that has not been declared dead, and you have excellent defence against such claims.”  
  
“Unlike you,” Middie chuckled, indicating doctor Winner’s ‘skin’.  
  
“Unlike me,” she agreed with a resounding laugh.  
  
As Middie made her way to the elevators, she heard the doctor exclaim to the group of men in the waiting area: “Rashid, guys, how can I examine you when you’re all dressed up like that?!”


	14. When Spies have No Good, Very Bad Days

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The nerve of this guy, barging in on her visit to Limbo like that. There were things she wanted to talk to her dead mother about. What was she going to do with _Treize Khushrenada?_

A deafening shriek rent the formerly peaceful air.

“WHY WON’T YOU CREEPS STAY DEAD?!”

“Miss Une, I assure you that I am well and truly dead, and have been for years.”

“Really?” She looked him up and down from her prone position. True, there was the little halo hovering over his head, but he looked suspiciously healthy for a man who had exploded with a beam weapon sticking through his mid-section. “Then what the hell are you doing down here?”

“Down where?”

“You know,” Middie said impatiently, scrambling upright and trying to gain a solid footing on the fluffy ground. “On Ear- _holy shit why am I standing on a cloud?!”_

“This place does take some getting used to.” Treize Khushrenada said with idle magnanimousness, while Middie had a minor nervous breakdown.

Groping at the entry wound, she wailed: “No! No, damnit! This isn’t what I meant when I said I wanted to make up for what I did! I haven’t even said goodbye to dad and the boys.”

“No need to worry about that, my dear.”

Middie gave him a furious glare. “Now what?”

“You’re not really dead. You’ll be back in your body soon.”

_“What?”_

Smiling faintly, Treize motioned to where the bullet had struck. “That’s going to hurt in the morning, and your family and friends will have worried themselves sick, but you’ll live.”

She stared at him. “Then why am I here – or why are you here – I mean, _what?”_

“I saw a chance to meet you and took it.” Treize said simply, looking her up and down like she had done him before. “My dear Lady is very fond of you, as is my daughter. Wasting this opportunity would have been such a shame.”

“Okaaay...” This wasn’t fair. Why couldn’t it have been her mother that came to see her during her near-death or out of body or whatever kind of experience this was? She hadn’t taken that bullet for Lady or Mariemeia. The nerve of this guy, barging in on her visit to Limbo like that. There were things she wanted to talk to her dead mother about. What was she going to do with _Treize Khushrenada?_

“Did I mention I can read your mind?”

Middie paled.

Treize smiled a smile that might have been comforting, had it not come from a dead man Middie had been hearing rather disturbing stories about lately. (Lady’s lingering fondness for the man had been far less disconcerting when it could still pass for a harmless bit of leftover psychosis and the likes of Milliardo Peacecraft weren’t chiming in to provide anecdotes.) “It comes with being dead.”

 _I want my mommy,_ Middie thought, half petulantly and half tearfully.

“It’s sweet that you’re giving her some thought, but you didn’t exactly catch that bullet for your family either, now did you?” Treize said.

That was true. But he was not the person she wanted to discuss the person whose life she _had_ – hopefully – saved, with.

“Not to worry, Miss Une, I’m not here to meddle in your emotional affairs. Guilt, affection, instinct – perhaps even the stray thought that it would impress his sister…”

Middie’s mouth fell open from indignation.

“Human nature is grand and glorious, but after a while becomes sadly predictable. No, I’m not concerned with why you saved Mr Barton. What interests me is the reason he needed to be saved in the first place.”

Middie frowned. The shooter had screamed something. ‘Death to the -’ To the what? He hadn’t bothered to finish his sentence before he shot, so the noise had drowned out his words.

“What is it about Trowa Barton that would make someone want him dead?” Treize said, reclining in a chair of cloud. “Keep in mind that Quatre Winner was present as well.”

Middie gave him an odd look. “Maybe he belonged to one of those freaky cults that say homosexual relationships are evil?”

“Not this time.”

“A cult that says relationships across social classes are evil?”

“It’s not a cult.”

“Great, that rules out a whopping one tenth of a percent of all possible suspects."

Treize only smirked at her impatience. “It’s not just Mr Winner and Mr Barton who are involved, and it’s not about a current issue, but a past one.”

“Okay, you got an actual date, and maybe a geographical location to go with that?”

“Geographical locations have very little to do with this. It’s relationships and actions that’re important.”

Middie gave him an uncomprehending look.

“Let me put it this way,” Treize leaned forward, resting his chin on folded hands. “How did Mr Barton and Mr Winner meet?”

“I dunno. During the war somehow.”

“Doesn’t that strike you as odd? Two such completely different people?”

“It was a big war. Stranger things have happened.”

“And what about all their other friends? From salvage workers to circus performers, industrial magnates to royalty and politicians, military officials of every imaginable rank and persuasion – even dictators.”

“The Preventor agency is known to create exotic match-ups.”

“Ah, but you forget, these people knew each other before the establishment of the Preventor Agency."

“If you’re trying to tell me something, just say it.”

“Now where would the fun in that be?"

“I’m not playing this game.”

“It’s not hard. Just think back. What force could have reached from one end of human territory to another, touching supporters of all regimes in equal measure, uniting the will of all social classes and industrial sectors, civilians and soldiers, politicians and industrials alike.”

Middie pinched the bridge of her nose. “Clown Care. Mosquitoes. Gundams.” Her eyes flew open. She looked at Treize, who was smirking. “Gundams? Gundam pilots. They’re former gundam pilots?”

Suddenly, strange voices reached their cloud.

“Are you sure you two are okay?”

“Yes, Cathy.”

“We owe it to this brave lady here.”

“Trowa, what’s with that face? You look like you’re constipated.”

“Nothing, Cathy.”

“He’s lying.”

“I don’t need to be a psychic to know he’s lying. He’s been acting strange about Middie right from the start. Just spit it out already, Trowa. All of us narrowly escaped death today, does someone have to die for real before you tell us what’s up?”

“There’s nothing to tell.”

 _Wow, this is the easiest I’ve ever listened in on a conversation_ , Middie thought, looking around in search of the source of the sound.

“He’s still lying. Trowa, if this is about that monogamy thing -”

“It isn’t, Quatre.”

“It’d be okay, you know. I know it may be hard for you because you never grew up with it. I swear I won’t be mad if you and Middie -"

_"That’s not it.”_

Treize tapped Middie on the shoulder. “When you get back, please tell Mariemeia I’m proud of her and give Lady my kindest regards.”

Middie quirked an eyebrow at him. _“Your kindest regards?_ After all these years she still keeps a little shrine for you, and that’s all you have to say to her?”

The slightest hint of a blush appeared on his cheeks.

“Undying love it is, then.” Middie concluded with a smirk.

And promptly fell through the bottom of their cloud.


	15. When Spies meet the Ghost of Love Disasters Past

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Middie Une meets the ghost of Meilan, runs out of patience for everything ever.

Middie said a little prayer to her dearly departed sanity while she lit the endless amount of candles the handbook had recommended, but did not stop herself from sitting down by the spirit board. After meeting Treize-freaking-Khushrenada on a cloud with a halo over his head, she was pretty much done questioning the sanity of anything.  
  
“Oh veil-piercing coffee machine of the dead, please answer my call, please allow me to gossip with the departed dear one of a gundam pilot.” she chanted as best she could, keeping one eye on the copy of _Modern Séances: Reach The Recently Dead In Twelve Easy Steps_ lying open beside her and the other on the hot coffee she carefully poured onto the very centre of the board, from where it spread through a maze of carved grooves and formed a dark, wet pattern against the cheap plywood. “Oh distant acquaintance of a distant acquaintance, please hear the bubble and sputter of a nice fresh cuppa and come gossip across the veil of death with the distant acquaintance of a distant acquaintance.”  
  
And what do you know: amidst the potent smell of coffee, pine and what she could have sworn was marihuana, a translucent silvery shape welled up from the board, like a particularly large and deformed soap bubble.  
  
Middie barely managed to keep from banging her face against the soiled wood, slapping her palm to her forehead instead. Of course it works. OF COURSE. WHY THE HELL WOULDN’T IT?!  
  
There was an even bigger problem than her now confirmed insanity, though: the lone annoyed-looking, teenaged, female, Asian ghost was most certainly not who Middie had called for.  
  
_‘Who the hell are you?’_ the ghost-girl asked, her voice echoing eerily.  
  
“Who the hell are _you?_ ” Middie countered.  
  
_‘I asked first!’_  
  
“My name is Middie Une,” she sighed. Why fight it? Maybe it was better this way. “I’m the one who called you down from your cloud.”  
  
The girl swelled with indignation. _‘You did that? Then I sure as hell ain’t telling you my name.’_  
  
“Fine, fine. All I want to know is - what the hell do you have to do with the gundam pilots?”  
  
_‘Have to do with them? I_ am _a gundam pilot! I was once the pilot of the mother of all mobile suits, gundams or not. And you could even say -’_ \- the girl cast a quick smirk to the ceiling - _‘- that since the greatest of mobile suits, Shenlong, was named for me and became my shrine, I am not only a gundam pilot, but a_ gundam _.’_  
  
Outside resounded an inexplicable clap of thunder.  
  
_‘That’s right, you heard me, you loser!’_  
  
“Shenlong?” Middie groaned meanwhile. “That wasn’t Trowa’s gundam, that was...” She wracked her brain. “Wufei’s. Nataku, is it?”  
  
_‘Oh, you guessed.’_ the girl said dismissively. She looked around Middie’s cluttered floor as if searching for something. _‘If you had to drag me down here for nothing anyway, you could have at least brought some sweets to go with the coffee.’_  
  
“If I give you sweets, could you patch me through to Mr or Mrs Bloom? If they don’t mind, I’d like to ask some questions about their son.”  
  
_‘Never heard of ’em. But even a former girl turned legendary warrior spirit has her needs, you know, and I might go poltergeist if you -’_  
  
“Alright, alright, forget it!” Middie pulled a box of chocolates from her shopping bag, removed the cardboard lid and shook them from their little plastic beds onto the spirit board. “Will you at least get lost now?”  
  
_‘With pleasure!’_ Nataku crowed, dove face-first into the pile of chocolate, and disappeared.  
  
Middie cleaned up the mess and broke out her special bottle of whiskey.


	16. When Spies have Reconciliation, Finally!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Thank you all for coming. Please, have a drink. Everybody comfortable? Okay. Catherine, will you or shall I?" "Let’s cut to the chase. Something has been going on lately, and me and Quatre want to know what it is. _Right now._ "

Frozen in their respective positions of attempted sneaking through spacious, well-lit hallways, Middie and Trowa faced each other. Not a breath stirred in their un-snuck-through hallway as voices drifted from the open door directly between them.

"Thank you all for coming. Please, have a drink. Everybody comfortable? Okay. Catherine, will you or shall I?"

"Let’s cut to the chase. Something has been going on lately, and me and Quatre want to know what it is. _Right now."_

"Uhm, Wufei, close the door please?"

Middie and Trowa hightailed it out of that hallway as fast as their tiptoes could carry them. They heard the door clock shut from around their respective corners and peeked back into the hallway. Their wary hesitation was quickly overcome by their desire to know what was going on in the conference room all Trowa’s friends and Middie’s newfangled acquaintances had so suddenly and mysteriously gathered in. With minimal awkwardness, they both pressed an ear to the door.

"They’re talking about us, aren’t they?" Middie asked, after several minutes of dead silence. The Preventor agency prided itself on its spy-proof conference rooms, and with reason.

"Most likely."

Professional-grade poker faces or no, the next few minutes were significantly more awkward. They ended up sitting next to each other on the floor opposite the door, alternately staring at it intently and staring at it so as not to stare at each other.

Middie was the first to break the uneasy silence. "Maybe I should just leave, for both our sakes. As big as the Earth Sphere is, this job keeps seeming to throw us back together."

Trowa sighed. "There’s no reason for you to leave."

"The reason is sitting right next to me."

"You don’t have to leave because of me. Just give me some time to get used to you being here."

"I’ve been here for almost a year, Trowa."

"And no two months have passed since your arrival in which you didn’t barge into yet another part of my life, took over yet another part of my social circle and stole more of my friends. An awfully familiar scenario."

Middie winced. "That wasn’t on purpose, I swear."

"I believe you. But try telling that to the trauma you caused me when we were kids."

"I don’t suppose this is a good time to tell you I know about you having been a gundam pilot?"

He shrugged gloomily. "Une already told me you’d talked to her about it."

"Oh." A load she’d subconsciously been carrying since her narcotic hallucination of Treize Khushrenada suddenly toppled from her shoulders. "Okay. But still. Aside from catching bullets for you, isn’t there anything I can do to make it up to you?"

"Not force your way into my life any further?"

"I told you, I’m not doing it on purpose. I can’t help it."

"Then I can’t think of anything."

Middie bit her lip. "If my intrusion is what’s bothering you... My father and brothers are coming over for a visit next week. Maybe you’d like to meet them? You know, to even the score a bit?"

"Meet the people you sold out my mercenary troupe for?"

"Oh, crap. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean -"

Trowa smiled. "No, it’s fine. I think I’d like that."

"You sure?"

"Yeah. I’m sure."

The almost mischievous glint in his eyes didn’t bode well, Middie’s spy-senses told her, but the guilt-ridden little girl in her was so relieved by his words and the rapid fading of animosity between them that she welcomed whatever may have in store for her with open arms. They sat in silence again for a while, the atmosphere gradually becoming more relaxed, until the silence of the door in front of them caused them to spontaneously burst out in small talk.

"Hey, about Quatre..."

"Hm?"

"He doesn’t really think you and I..."

"I managed to talk it out of his head."

"Good. ’Cause just so you know, I don’t sleep with other people’s lovers off the job."

Trowa laughed soundlessly, snorting, like a chuckle through his nose.

"And I’m devoting to Catherine right now, anyway." she added. "Having flings to the side at this stage would just make things awkward and complicated."

Again a pause. The silence wasn’t uneasy by any means, but as Middie’s thoughts wandered through it, it became... itchy. Eventually she very tentatively gave in to the urge to scratch.

"Quatre though, he... doesn’t seem to have a lot of faith in - in your loyalty."

Trowa shrugged. "He just knows what I’m like."

Middie’s eyes could have fallen from their sockets right then. Trowa chuckled again. "When I was growing up, the mercs taught me that if you’re hungry, you eat. If you’re tired, you sleep. If you need to take a piss, you take a piss. And if you’re horny, you have sex. Simple as that. And I still think it’s perfectly sensible. Quatre knows that, and he understands."

"What about when you’re in love?" Middie asked, morbidly curious.

"You write bad poetry." he deadpanned. "I gave up on that. He loved the sentiment, but it was making his ears bleed. So now I’m trying it his way by not sleeping with other people. As much as he understands that sex isn’t the same for me as it is for him, it’s hard for him to cope with."

"A long distance relationship like yours must be hard." Middie said sympathetically. "He can’t just stop by whenever he pleases, like me."

"True. But he’s a kind of psychic, which helps."

"Oh?"

Trowa explained about something he called a ‘Space Heart’, an emphatic ability that allowed humans to mimic radios, and which Quatre had and was training himself to master. It could be used to send thoughts and feelings to and receive them from people on the right ‘frequency’.

"He says Heero and Relena have something similar going on, but they stick so close together that their reading each other has become so natural that the spacey part is hard to distinguish from body language and simply having known each other very well for a very long time. Unlike with us. I dunno, I can’t do any of that mumbo-jumbo myself. He says that because I was born and raised on Earth, it’s more of a latent, recipient thing than for him, a life-long colonist."

"Wow." Middie said, not knowing what to make of such a story. Then something occurred to her. "Can you use this space heart thing to hear what they’re talking about?"

"I wish."

"Aw. Then can you see ghosts?"

"Never met one."

"Make things happen with your mind?"

"Quatre can do that to me, but since you and me aren’t intimate that way..."

It took a moment for Middie to realise he was joking, but when she did, the laughter came strong.

"So we agree?" Middie eventually sighed. "Whatever attraction there still is between us, we’re not going to act on it. Because you’re happy being with Quatre, and I don’t break people up when I’m not getting paid for it, and whatever may become of it, I am head over heels in love with Cathy."

"Sounds about right."

"Good." Middie sighed. "Now if only I had the ability to read Cathy’s mind for a bit and find out why she’s giving me all these mixed signals, everything would be perfect."

"I think I know the answer to that." Trowa said with an almost sheepish expression. "She does like you, I can tell you that. Has it real bad. The only reason she’s holding is what happened when we were kids. She’s very protective of me."

Middie frowned; since Catherine had never brought it up, she had assumed she didn’t consider it a hindrance to their potential relationship and was waiting for Middie herself to bring something that sensitive up. "But why would she have gotten involved with me in the first place if -"

"Because she doesn’t know it was you. Just the gist of it - a spy came and got everybody except me killed. I never told her why _your_ presence, here and now, bugs me so much."

Middie didn’t realize how much it meant that he’d kept that silent. But she would. And soon.

"She _didn’t_ know? But if those guys in that room haven’t told her yet, she’s gonna make them. Oh God." Middie was torn between jumping up and running as far away as she could, as fast as she could, and burying her hands in her hair and squeezing her eyes shut. "I’ve never told her anything about that time. I just couldn’t - can’t. Fuck, she’s your sister, how would she take something like that? Even my own father almost threw me out of the house!"

"All of this never occurred to you before?"

"I thought she knew from the get-go! I’m chronically in denial, alright?!"

She was also currently close to tears. Trowa saw this and took pity on her.

"Just look at it this way, it can’t get much worse than it is now. She’s coming up with horror stories every night because I won’t tell her what the deal is."

"Yeah, like what happened back then was _not_ a horror story!"

"You saved my life and got me away from a bunch of contract killers who strapped me in a mobile suit before I could write my name - who never bothered to give me a name, even. No matter how horrible she may think you are for all the rest, that’ll count for something."

Middie lifted her eyes to him, blinking rapidly to dispel the tears. "You think so?"

As if a sadistic Fate had been listening in on them, the door flew open, and a towering Cathy’s shadow fell over them.

"Something tells me we’re about to find out."


	17. When Spies meet Their Ever After

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Middie Une meets no-one new. She won’t have to fear for goodbyes anymore, though. Catherine’s POV!

The ringmaster pressed a finger to his lips and pointed. Catherine let out an “aww” despite herself at the sight.  
  
“What is she doing there?” she whispered.  
  
“From what the others have told me, she was hovering around your trailer the entire night, looking nervous and awkward and muttering to herself like she was rehearsing some kind of speech. Maiser even came up and asked me if she had done the proper thing and asked for my blessing first.”  
  
Catherine’s eyes went wide. _“What?”_  
  
“They don’t know what happened,” the ringmaster reminded her.  
  
“Oh, right.”  
  
The cloud of butterflies that had exploded in Catherine’s stomach took a moment to settle down. She couldn’t decide whether they were happy butterflies or vicious, flesh-eating, evil ones.  
  
“What am I gonna do, uncle?” she wondered aloud. “Look at her lying there with that innocent sleeping face. She’s like an adorable little kitten. I just want to _pet_ her.”  
  
“A little stray kitten looking for a loving home,” the ringmaster said. “Just your type, isn’t it, big sister Catherine?”  
  
“That has nothing to do with this,” Catherine said calmly. “Middie is a big sister with a loving home of her own. If anything, finally knowing that should make me like her more.”  
  
“But it doesn’t, does it?” the ringmaster asked, not unkindly.  
  
“Yes it does,” Catherine countered. The thought of comparing anecdotes and not having to hold back on fussing over her adult, two-feet-taller, capable-of-killing-everything-within-sight-with-his-pinky-without-showing-a-single-facial-expression baby brother while her lover was around was fantastic. “Just... not enough. She hurt Trowa, uncle.”  
  
“A lot of people have hurt Trowa. In her case he just didn’t hurt her first and he hasn’t hurt her back.”  
  
“Having her around makes him uncomfortable.”  
  
“That seems to have lessened considerably lately. Catching a bullet for him seems to have had strange, unforseen positive effects.”  
  
“Do _you_ like her?”  
  
The ringmaster looked at her like she’d grown a second head. “What? _Me?_ ”  
  
“Yes, you. You’d be the father-in-law, you know.”  
  
“I was not aware I had any say in what my own little stray kitten brings home to this nest I supposedly run.”  
  
“Just because I’m the big sister doesn’t mean you aren’t still the father-in-law.”  
  
The ringmaster smiled and cupped Catherine’s cheeks. “Your eyes sparkle when you look at her, Catherine. Anyone you love so much, I have no choice but to like too. Stop being the big sister for a moment. Trowa wants you to have the opportunity to be the girlfriend too.”  
  
“You think so?” she asked.  
  
“He already told you so. Five times.”  
  
Well. That was true, she supposed.  
  
With a kiss to her adoptive parent’s cheek, Catherine slipped around the cage they’d been hiding behind and jogged up to the trampoline, in the centre of which lay the sleeping Middie, curled up with her pale blonde hair tucked beneath her chin like a tail. She was about to get the most frighteningly bouncy wake-up call in her life, but Catherine thought she deserved that, at least, before they went back to her trailer and spent the foreseeable future snuggling and kissing.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments on older fics will ALWAYS remain welcome.


End file.
